Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ARGUMENT, IN THE CASE OF THE CHEROKEE NATION u. THE STATE OF GEORGIA, BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 5, 1831. Motion for an injunction to prevent the execution of certain acts of the legislature of the state of Georgia, in the territory of the Cherokee nation of Indians, on behalf of the Cherokee nation; they claiming to proceed in the supreme court of the United States as a foreign state against the State of Georgia; Under the provision of the constitution of the United States, which gives to the court jurisdiction in controversies in which a state of the United States and the citizens thereof, and a foreign state, citizens, or subjects thereof, are parties. Mr. Sergeant, in support of the motion for the injunction, after recapitulating the principal heads of the bill, said, that in the brief exposition to be presented of the case of the complainants, he should confine himself strictly and entirely to the judicial aspect of the question, avoiding all political considerations, and every topic which did not conduce directly to a legal conclusion. That he would endeavour still further to simplify the matter, by confining himself, as far as possible, to the very party before the court, the Cherokee nation: without wandering into the discussion of questions about Indians in general, their condition and rights, which must necessarily be vague and indefinite. Each case must at last depend, a few general principles being first settled, upon its own particular circumstances. With this view, and within these limits, he would consider, and endeavour to establish the following propositions. 1. That the parties before the court were such as, under the constitution, to give to this court original jurisdiction of the complaint made by the one against the oth...